Corporate political engagement is increasingly noticeable at grocery stores; however, there is limited research evaluating the impact on consumer demand. Here, we investigate the case of Aunt Jemima (AJ), which responded to criticism that the branding was racist by removing the eponymous image and renaming the brand Pearl Milling Company. We evaluate the changes on demand for both the brand and their competitors and find that renaming the brand reduced both willingness to pay for and choice of AJ and increased choice of competitors. Finally, we show these effects are mitigated significantly by informing consumers of the reason for rebranding.

The economic crisis experienced by many developed countries over the past decade saw the emergence of the phenomenon of so-called recovered firms (RFs), or employee buyouts of failed capitalist firms (CFs). While it is obvious that one of the objectives sought by these workers is to keep their jobs, the subsequent performance of these firms is unclear. Are RFs more likely to fail than other worker managed firms (WMFs) or than CFs? Do RF workers get higher incomes than their peers in other WMFs or in CFs? This analysis is based on a linked employer–employee panel data set from Uruguayan social security administrative records. The main findings are that RFs survive longer than other WMFs or than CFs. However, RF workers receive incomes lower than those of their peers at other WMFs or at CFs. This income differential is explained partly by a brain drain process and specific human capital losses.

Faced with risky yields and returns, risk-averse farmers require a premium to take risks. In this paper, we estimate individual farmers’ degrees of risk aversion to adjust for the risk premium in returns and to replace the farmers’ realized returns with their certainty equivalent returns in the production function. In that way, the effect of the inputs on returns will automatically be risk-adjusted, i.e., we obtain risk-adjusted marginal effects of inputs, which can be used in decision-making support of farmers’ input choices in production. Using farm-level data from organic basmati rice smallholders in India, we illustrate this method using nonparametric production functions. The results show that the input elasticities and returns-to-scale estimates change when the farmers’ degree of risk aversion is taken into consideration.

A typical characteristic of the wine supply chain in the Old World is the significant share of cooperatives in wine-making that coexists with investor-owned firms and on-farm wine-makers. This paper analyzes the determinants of whether grape growers deliver their grapes to a cooperative winery of which they are members, sell their grapes to outside wineries, or make their own wine on their farm. Our analysis is based on data from a typical wine-producing area in Northern Italy. The explanatory variables comprise the potential prices linked to the different grape allocations and various farmer and farm characteristics. The high share of farmers delivering their grapes to cooperatives can, to a large extent, be explained by their higher price relative to one of the spot markets. On-farm wine-making is favored by larger farms and more educated farmers.

GC Harcourt made many fundamental and essential contributions to the development of capital investment theory – most famously via his development of the Cambridge Capital Controversies, exposing conceptual and analytical flaws and contradictions in neoclassical approaches to defining and measuring capital. Relatedly, Harcourt also made essential contributions to our understanding of how accounting rules, used by real-world businesses to guide their investment decision-making, create anomalies and deficiencies in the accumulation of capital at a microeconomic level – with significant, deleterious consequences for the accumulation of capital at a macroeconomic level. In developing Harcourt’s contributions, this paper links Harcourt’s early insights about accounting rules with subsequent developments in behavioural economic models of business decision-making, thus aligning Harcourt’s contributions with insights from behavioural models of investment decision-making. These insights are then combined in showing how the misapplication of investment appraisal criteria at a microeconomic level contributes to under-investment and investment volatility in the macroeconomy, with negative implications for output, employment, labour productivity, wages and cyclical volatility.

This article deals with the rehabilitation of economies in post-conflict states, paying particular attention to the role played by the state in this process. Using the example of Cambodia and its policies on rice production and export, the article shows the prominent role that may be played by the state in prioritised areas of economic development where there has been market failure. In the Cambodian case, the government targeted rice production and export as these had great potential for promoting the major aims of national development policy – economic growth and poverty alleviation. Using a whole-of-government approach and a combination of direct involvement and the creation of an enabling environment, the government appears to have contributed to vastly increased rice production and export.

The vulnerability of small firms to price shocks may partly explain why fossil fuel subsidy removals in developing countries are so difficult to implement. This paper analyzes the effects of fuel and electricity price increases on profits of micro- and small-sized enterprises in Mexico. Using representative cross-sectional data, simulations of profit losses hint at potentially large short-term effects. First-order profit losses of a 1 per cent price increase are 0.2 per cent for fuels and 0.07 per cent for electricity, but are higher than 1 per cent for fuels in the transport sector. These effects are larger for formal than for informal firms, with energy-using low-profit firms being most vulnerable. Second-order impacts – predicted using estimated input-demand elasticities – indicate that firms react to price shocks by substituting labor for energy, while the self-employed appear to increase their own labor input. Reduced-form regressions show that some firms pass on higher fuel costs to customers.

We investigate incumbent brands’ response to entry and increased competition in a large retail setting. We extend the nonprice competition and manufacturer stocking literatures by examining if incumbent brands increase quality, specifically increasing the number of varieties (product-line length), in response to entry of a new local brand in the ice cream market. We use the entry of a new, local, super-premium ice cream brand in a large supermarket chain as a quasi-natural experiment and empirically examine if incumbent ice cream brands increased the product-line length in stores carrying the new brand. Using Poisson difference-in-differences estimators, we find that incumbent brands increased the number of varieties offered by 0.9 (3 percent) after the new brand's entry, with most of the responses coming from super-premium ice cream, which increased the number of varieties offered by 2.9 (12 percent) product choices. These findings contribute new insights into quality changes, manufacturer stocking decisions, and nonprice competition associated with entry of a local brand into the food retail sector.

Firm operators continually manage multiple sources of risk. In an application to cattle feedlot operations, our objective is to determine if producers view output price and animal health risks separately or jointly. We conduct a survey with a choice experiment placing operators in forward looking, decision-making scenarios, and capture information on past risk management approaches. Evidence regarding a relationship between animal health and output price risk mitigation is mixed and depends on the decision being made. Combined, these results provide new insight into how managers approach multiple risks when facing resource constraints.

This study examines the relative importance of local institutions and external finance on small business investment. Utilising the institutional theory, we argue that local institutions and external finance have heterogeneous effects on firm investment. More importantly, they may interact and moderate each other. Analysing a set of 1.3 million observations of small businesses operating in Vietnam (2006–2016) obtained from the Annual Enterprise Survey data from the Vietnam Statistics Office, we find that local institutional settings and external finance are important determinants of firm investment. Moreover, local institutions are able to moderate the effects of external finance on firm investment. As such, this study asserts that conventional models cannot discern whether institutions or external finance are more important to firm investment. Rather, the relative importance of institutions and external finance should be investigated from the perspective of their interaction.

To support decision-makers considering adopting integrated pest management (IPM) cropping in Norway, we used stochastic efficiency analysis to compare the risk efficiency of IPM cropping and conventional cropping, using data from a long-term field experiment in southeastern Norway, along with data on recent prices, costs, and subsidies. Initial results were not definitive, so we applied stochastic efficiency with respect to a function, limiting the assumed risk aversion of farmers to a plausible range. We found that, for farmers who are risk-indifferent to moderately (hardly) risk averse, the conventional system was, compared to IPM, less (equally) preferred.

This paper uses plant-level estimates of total factor productivity covering 40 years to examine what role, if any, productivity has played in the decline of output share and employment in British manufacturing. The results show that TFP growth in British manufacturing was negative between 1973 and 1982, marginally positive between 1982 and 1994 and strongly positive between 1994 and 2012. Poor TFP performance therefore does not appear to be the main cause of the decline of UK manufacturing. Productivity growth decompositions show that, in the latter period, the largest contributions to TFP growth come from foreign-owned plants, industries that are heavily involved in trade, and industries with high levels of intangible assets.

Environmental protection is an issue that all developing countries must cope with when inviting foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the high correlation between FDI and pollution does not necessarily indicate that foreign firms are to blame. In this study, we apply firm-level panel data from Vietnam and unique information on waste discharge to demonstrate that foreign firms are actually more proactive in acquiring ISO14001 certification. ISO14001 is a voluntary environmental standard, the adoption of which improves a firm's performance in terms of waste control, and increases its welfare and productivity level. This study provides robust evidence that firms' efforts toward corporate social responsibility eventually benefit them as well.

We investigated whether diversification and/or structural change would improve Norwegian agriculture. Using a flexible technology approach to account for different technologies, we assessed economies of scope and scale of dairy and cropping farms, including regional differences. We fitted translog cost functions to farm-level panel data for the period 1991–2014. We found both economies of scope and scale on the farms. Dairy farms have an economic incentive to integrate dairying with cropping in all regions of Norway, and vice versa. Thus, policy makers should eschew interventions that inhibit diversification or structural change and that increase the costs of food production.

U.S. agriculture has seen a rapid adoption of biotechnology over the last two decades. This study investigates how biotechnology has affected U.S. farm input demand and agricultural productivity. The analysis relies on data at the national level and at the state level for selected states in the Corn Belt. It evaluates the rate of technological change and price elasticities of demand for agricultural inputs over time. The study documents the evolving biases in technological change in agriculture. It finds evidence that farm input demands have become more price inelastic.

Design of government policies that seek greater adoption of anaerobic digesters can benefit from a greater understanding of the motivations for adoption. Using a nationwide survey of U.S. dairy and swine producers, this study seeks to determine how policies, peer group influences, environmental beliefs, and farm characteristics affect the decision to adopt a digester. Results suggest that neighborhood effects, farm type and size, and nonmarket benefits of anaerobic digestion are important for predicting whether or not a producer will consider this technology for manure management. However, the decision to actually adopt is more dependent on government policies and economic considerations.

In two-tier price systems, yield uncertainty creates incentives to overproduce quantity-restricted outputs even when prices for surplus output are very low. These incentives arise from precautionary motives against expected losses from quota shortfalls. Using an approach augmented for multiple input applications, the likelihood of excess production and the relative importance of price changes in different markets are estimated for Icelandic dairy farms. The results indicate that the average farm plans to exceed its quota, and price changes in the surplus milk market are approximately three times more effective in generating supply response than price changes in the quota milk market.

Combinations of futures and options contracts on milk and feed were simulated to determine their influence on a representative dairy farm's ability to meet cash flow requirements and reduce the variance of net income. Compared with the reference scenario of selling milk and procuring inputs on a monthly cash basis, the risk management activities did not result in a significant change in either the level or variance of net farm income. The results suggest that on average the current marketing procedure of monthly cash milk pricing and monthly feed purchases (and pricing) produces a strong built-in natural hedge for dairy farmers.

The institutional environment of Portuguese banking during the golden age years of economic growth (1950–73) has been criticised in many instances, at the time and in recent literature. Direct observers of the period as well as historians have stressed two main aspects of that environment: excessive protection of existing banks, allowing them to obtain high rents, which represented a disincentive for them to compete and innovate; excessive concentration of their activity on short-term commercial paper, thus preventing them from contributing to finance growth. There seems to be a contradiction here, however, with the high growth rates of the years 1950 to 1973. The apparent contradiction is not limited to Portugal, in fact, as rapid growth in many economies in that period occurred within a framework of heavily regulated financial systems. This is the ‘financial paradox’ of the golden age. Portugal is an interesting case in the international perspective. As in the rest of the western world, legislation repressed banking quite tightly, but banks circumvented the law and competed with each other. The signs of competition were visible mostly in two dimensions: the growth of time deposits and geographical expansion.